5 Best Practices for Recovering from Injury

injury recovery, recovering from injury, home caregiving, home care services

Injuries can strike at any age in life and can instantly turn your world upside down. As an adult, you have bills to pay, a life to live, and even other people to take care of — so chances are you’ll want to recover from injury as quickly as possible. The pressures of life cause many people to push through their injury recovery instead of taking the time to properly heal. While this short-term fix may seem like a good idea at the time, rushing the healing process can cause damage that shows up as health issues later in life. Think about what happens if a bone is broken and doesn’t get set properly. The same thing applies to almost all injuries, meaning that the first couple months of recovering from injury are the most crucial.

While total rest is often recommended for injury recovery, most people can’t afford to just put their lives on pause. Fortunately, there are best practices that can be utilized for a speedy and efficient recovery, even if you can’t take as much time off as you’d like.

There are many things that are necessary for proper injury recovering and the most important thing is to follow instructions with your doctor and to book checkups so that you can track your healing process. In addition to following doctor’s orders, these 5 best practices for recovering from injury will help you heal even when life is still on the go.

1. Eat Healthy and Drink Lots of Liquids

When you’re recovering from injury, your body needs more nourishment than when you’re healthy and well. Recovery is the time to skip the junk food and eat whole foods that contain lots of vitamins. Avoiding alcohol, refined sugar, and processed foods while replacing them with healthy alternatives will help you avoid putting extra pressure on your body by reducing your intake of toxins. A stressed system is also more prone to dehydration, so up your intake of fluids as well.

2. Rest Your Mind

Resting your body is common sense and will most likely be part of the instructions from your doctor, but people often overlook how much rest their minds need after an injury. When your body goes through trauma, your mind is affected, too. People can experience shock, depression, mental fatigue, brain fog, anxiety, and depression as a result of physical trauma. To rest your mind, avoid stressful conversations, taxing mental activities such as heavy work assignments, excessive use of social media, and tasks that induce anxiety. Ways to help your mind rest include playing soothing music, taking a warm bath, meditating, journaling, and walking mindfully in nature.

3. See a Therapist

The mental trauma following a major injury can be just as devastating as the physical trauma. Many people recovering from injury suffer from conditions such as post traumatic stress disorder without even realizing it. Panic attacks and trouble sleeping can result from mental anxiety about the injury. Understanding how to process these emotions and trauma can be difficult, but seeking counseling from a good therapist can help. Talking to a therapist is also a way to vent in a safe space rather than confiding in friends and family members who may not know the right thing to say in response.

4. Hire a Home Caregiver

It is important to ask for help from friends and family members, but the kind of help available is usually not sufficient. When relying on unprofessional help, you have to rely on other people’s schedules and skill sets. Hiring a home caregiver is a much more efficient form of help when recovering from injury. A home caregiver can work around your schedule and will have the right set of skills to address all of your particular needs. Home caregivers provide assistance with running errands, scheduling appointments, cooking, cleaning, range of motion exercises, and other tasks that are challenging to complete while injured.

5. Exercise Gently

When people hear the words “rest” or “recovery” they don’t often think of exercise. Certainly, it is best to avoid rigorous or even moderate exercise when healing from injury. Gentle exercise, however, is often essential for recovery. Without movement, joints and muscles become stiff and tight. Muscle stiffness can also be accompanied by pain, cramping, and discomfort. Utilizing basic range of motion exercises, gentle yoga poses (such as child’s pose), and mindful stretching will keep your blood circulating, will lubricate joints, and will help ease muscle stiffness. Just be careful not to overdo it and pay attention to signals from your body.

Hiring a Home Caregiver for Injury Recovery Services

Home caregivers can work both on a part-time and temporary basis in order to provide injury recovery services. It is best to hire a home caregiver from a reputable home care agency, such as Alegre Home Care, to ensure that you will receive the best care possible. Caregivers at Alegre Home Care receive some of the best training in Northern California, undergo extensive background checks, and work with clients to create care plans that are tailored to each individual. If you’re searching for home care services, please contact Alegre Home Care at one of our many Northern California locations.